Book review:

Elf's escapades make
hilarious light reading

TRUTH is often stranger than fiction, and that is certainly so when author Dave Donelson tells the story of Elf, a Silky Terrier puppy with uncontrollable wanderlust and a posse of murderous dog fanatics in hot and hilarious pursuit.

The novel, Hunting Elf, is based on the escapades of a real pup named Elf, who ran away from Donelson's Mamaroneck, NY, home a few days before he was to be a Christmas gift. Despite an arduous days-long search by friends, neighbours, family members and a few people Donelson didn't even know, the little terrier stayed lost until Christmas Eve, when he trotted back into the house as if nothing had happened.

"Elf's return was either a miracle or an omen," Donelson says. "We didn't know whether to kiss him or strangle him."

But Donelson, a writer, didn't do either one. Instead, he turned the story into a fictionalized account of a Silky Terrier with Westminster-champion blood lines acquired by hapless Dan McCoy, a suburbanite who didn't really want a dog in the first place. He added a cast of nefarious dognappers, a couple of off-camera murders, a few goofy in-laws and neighbours, and Hunting Elf grew into a hilarious adventure novel that ends when the whole gang chases Elf into the middle of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Dave Donelson

The heart of the story, though, is how the first-time dog owners, Dan and his wife June, learn to live with the rambunctious Elf. According to Donelson, "Imagine Groucho Marx at a Hunter S. Thompson New Year's Eve party - that's Elf. He has the heart of Rin-Tin-Tin and the table manners of Grendel's mother."

Drawing on his life in a house with several champion show dogs - his wife, Nora Guzewicz, breeds and shows Bichon Frises - Donelson filled the novel with experiences recognizable by anyone who has ever raised a puppy. Elf lifts his leg in all the wrong places, chews on everything from an heirloom Oriental carpet to the CATV cable, and has an uncontrollable urge to dig up and eat delicacies like kitty paté, which gives a whole new meaning to the term "doggie breath".

While the McCoys try to survive their adventures in puppydom, two rival breeders do their best to snatch Elf. Both are aided and opposed by a double-crossing, two-timing, bisexual handler with secret plans of his own. It makes for a delicious romp through the suburbs of New York.

Hunting Elf first came out in 2006 as a free audio book on a website Donelson designed, www.huntingelf.com and requests for a printed version started pouring in. When over 6000 episodes of the book were downloaded in the first four months, Donelson published the 276-page trade paperback, which is available at www.lulu.com/content/482776 or other book sellers.

Dave Donelson writes for the Christian Science Monitor, Disney Family Fun and Westchester Magazine, among other publications. Hunting Elf is his first novel. He's currently finishing a thriller about diamond smuggling in the Congo.

Issue 30Page 4